Amazing Stories, Vol. 2, No. 1 — page 47: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

46 contented himself with answering. “They scattered when I opened the windows.” Joslyn lifted a stiletto letter-opener from the desk and tried to separate, so as to read, the car- bonized ashes left in the tray. They fell into a thousand pieces. Trant’s eyes had registered all the room and now measured Joslyn and Dr. Reiland. They had ceased to be trusted men and friends of his as he incorporated them as definite elements in the prob- lem. Suddenly he stooped before the couch, slipped his hand under the body, and drew out a crumpled paper. It was a recently canceled note for twenty thousand dollars drawn on the university regularly by Dr. Lawrie as Treasurer. “What is the matter, Joslyn?” Dr. Reiland started up. “A note. I cannot recollect its circumstances.” The president stared at the paper. Suddenly his face whitened. “Where are Lawrie’s keys?” He opened the desk drawer; but Trant went straight to the couch and took the keys from Lawrie’s pocket. Dr. Joslyn unlocked the vault at the foot of the couch and from a pile of .books within took the top one. “Reiland,” he said, pitifully, “the trustees author- ized this note for two thousand dollars, not twenty.” “But it has been canceled. See, he paid it! And these,” he motioned to the ashes in the tray, “if these, too, were notes—raised, as you clearly accuse —he must have paid them. They were returned.” “Paid? Yes!” Dr. Joslyn’s voice rang accusingly. “Paid from the University funds! See, Lawrie himself had entered them for their face amounts as he paid them. Here,” he turned back a few pages swiftly, “they are entered for the amounts we authorized a few months ago. The total discrep- ancy exceeds one hundred thousand dollars!” “Hush!” Reiland was upon him. “Hush.” The morning was advancing. The halls resounded with the tread ef students passing to recitation rooms. “Who filled this note out?” Trant had picked up the paper and asked this question suddenly. “Harrison. It was the custom. The signature is Lawrie’s, and the note is regular. Oh, there can be no doubt, Reiland!” “No, no!” the old man objected. was not a thief!” “How else can it be? The tips taken from the fixture, the keyhole plugged with paper, the shut- ters—never closed before for ten years—fastened within, the door locked! Burned notes, the single one left signed in his own hand! Do you forget that the trustees meet to-morrow night and he then would have had to present his books? We must face it, Reiland; a suicide—a hundred thousand dollars short in his account!” “Luther!” The old professor turned stretching out his.hands to his young assistant. “Do you, too, believe this? It is not so! Oh, my boy, just before this terrible thing, you were telling me of the new training which could be used to clear the innocent and prove the guilty. I thought it brag- gadocio. I scoffed at your ideas. But if your words were truth, now prove them. Take this “James Lawrie ah estore, J from this innocent man.” hot es > San ee: BF Se ES AMAZING STORIES The young man sprang to his friend as he tot- tered. “Dr. Reiland, I shall clear him!” he prom- ised wildly. “I shall prove, I swear, not only that Dr. Lawrie was not a thief, but—he was not even a suicide!” “What madness is this, Trant,” the president demanded impatiently, “when the facts are so plain before us?” “So plain, Dr. Joslyn? Yes,” the young man re- joined, “very plain indeed—the fact that before the papers were burned, before the gas was turned on or the tips taken from the fixture, before that door was slammed and the spring lock had fastened it from the outside—Dr. Lawrie was dead and was laid upon that lounge!” “What? What—what, Trant?” Reiland and the president exclaimed together.. But the young man addressed himself only to the president. “You yourself, sir, before we told you how we found him, saw that Dr. Lawrie had not himself lain down, but had been laid upon the lounge. He is not light; some one almost dropped him there, since the edge of the lounge cut the plaster on the wall, body, where it could scarcely have escaped if the notes were burned first; where it would most surely have been overlooked if the body already lay there. ' Gas would not be pouring out during the burning, so the tips were probably taken off later. It must have struck you how theatric all this is, that some one has thought of its effect, that some one has ar- ranged this room, and, leaving Lawrie dead, has gone away, closing the spring lock “Luther!” Dr. Reiland had risen, his hands stretched out before him. “You are charging mur- der!” “Wait!” Dr. Joslyn was standing by the win- dow, and his eyes had caught the swift approach of a limousine automobile which, with its plate glass shimmering in the sun, was taking the broad sweep into the driveway. As it slowed before the entrance, the president swung back to those in the room, “We two,” he said, “were Lawrie’s nearest friends —he had but one other. When you telephoned me this morning I called up Branower, simply asking him to meet me at the Treasurer’s Office at once. He is coming now. Go down and prepare him, Trant. His wife is with him. She must not come up.” Trant hurried down without comment. Through the window of the car he could see the profile of a woman, and beyond it the broad, powerful face of a man, with sandy beard parted and brushed after a foreign fashion. Branower was the President of the Board of Trustees of the university, an office in which he had succeeded his father. At least half a dozen of the surrounding buildings had been erected by the elder Branower, and practically his entire fortune had been bequeathed to the uni- versity. “Well, Trant, what is it?” the trustee asked. He had opened the door of the limousine and was pre- paring to descend. “Mr. Branower,” Trant replied, “Dr. Lawrie was found this morning dead in his office.” “Dead? This morning?” A muddy grayness, Apne si peated under the anh af --comicbook ag saps —< eee Soe is é The single note not burned lay under his - Ft Le Paycses